Milgram subjects obeyed because legitimacy plus incremental momentum locked them into continuing

Evidence

For instance, he pointed out the importance of the subject’s perception that he has willingly entered into a transaction governed by an authority that is legitimate and has the scope to command the particular actions in question. Second, once the interaction starts, other forces bind the subject into the situation. The cues that somebody is possibly being harmed occur only later, after a “momentum” has been built up around the legitimate definition of the punishing actions, and the shock-giving participant has incurred all the obligations (that Goffman, 1961, has so convincingly pointed out) to continue an ongoing social activity and the definition of that activity. From these materials an account could be created of why the modal subject in many of the Milgram conditions gave the maximal level of shock. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3939

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Goffman’s interaction obligations and frame analysis; also to the incremental-commitment logic seen in escalation and foot-in-the-door research. — connects to: Regime norms embed themselves in officials’ belief systems, creating internal momentum to perpetuate them.; Consensus decision-making and exhaustion prevented the MPL from channeling mass momentum — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 453